


Peter Gets a Cat

by BirdofFlame



Series: Tony Stark' s Collection of (mostly) Superhero/Vigilante Teens (DC, Marvel, and Percy Jackson) [1]
Category: Marvel
Genre: Gen, Shuri's just an end cameo sorry, Tags will be updated
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-17 02:00:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29709912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BirdofFlame/pseuds/BirdofFlame
Summary: Peter helps out a cat on the streets and persuades Tony and May to let him keep her at the compound. They're all pretty happy with the arrangement, but Obadiah Stein's son has plans to ruin that.It's a good thing not everything is as it seems...
Relationships: Irondad & Spiderson - Relationship, Tony Stark/Pepper Potts
Series: Tony Stark' s Collection of (mostly) Superhero/Vigilante Teens (DC, Marvel, and Percy Jackson) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2165295
Kudos: 7





	1. A Cat

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be the first part of the Collection of Teenagers series but I got impatient.

Peter was in the middle of his patrol when he found the cat. He had paused at an alley to stop a mugging. The victim had safely escaped and the mugger was webbed to the stained pale-and-dark gray wall. Karen had already reported him to the police. 

The alley was messy, even for alleyway standards. The dumpsters were overflowing and boxes and trash bags were piled around them with other various junk. Mold grew along the base of the walls, climbing up trails of the dripping water that sustained them. The ground was dark gray stained darker with the occasional spatter of long-dried blood. Peter got the feeling this was a prime spot for small-time criminals. He was about to take off when a box rattled. A small, furry head popped up over the rim. It spotted him and hopped neatly over the edge of the box, walking straight over to Peter, stopping a few feet away to study him. He crouched down, studying it in turn. She was snow leopard-patterned in black and dark gray, blending into the alley with the exception of startling green eyes, and was seemingly between the stages of kitten and adult cat. No collar, either. He held out a hand. She sniffed it and seemed to find him acceptable, jumping onto his shoulder. Peter put a hand on the ground to steady himself as the cat draped her body across his shoulders. He stood up. 

“You going to stay there?” he asked, moving to rub his fingers along the cat’s head. She hissed lightly and knocked his hand away, but made no move to leave. “Alright then.” 

He started scaling the wall, afraid that web-slinging would dislodge the cat. He needn’t have worried. The cat poked his face with her nose and caught her claws in the fabric of his suit. Not enough to tear or pinch his skin, just enough to keep her secure. 

The rest of patrol was uneventful. Peter rescued another cat from a tree (whom the black cat seemed unimpressed with), stopped another mugging, and just generally helped people out. He was on his way back to Stark Tower where he was staying for the weekend, when Karen alerted him to an ‘incoming call from Tony Stark’. 

“Kid, please tell me you aren’t bringing a cat home with you.” Mr. Stark sounded tired. 

“What- Oh!” Peter had forgotten about the cat on his shoulders. He thwipped past another building, the cat purring at the wind rush just loud enough for it to be picked up by the mic in Peter’s suit. 

“Yeah ‘Oh’. How do you forget a cat wrapped around you like a scarf?” Videos of ‘Spider-Man has a Cat’ had already gone viral. And- “Is that- purring?” 

“Mr. Stark, the cat doesn’t have a home and the shelter in Queens is full. If I take her there, they’ll just put her down! She’s super sweet and I promise I’ll take care of her!” 

“Kid-”

“Pleeeease Mr. Stark?” 

Tony sighed. If he said no, the kid would feel guilty and mope for weeks. “Fine. But it’s  _ your _ responsibility.” 

“Yes! Thank you so much!” 

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

_ Time-skip two weeks _

The cat was staring at him again. He could feel it. Tony turned around and there it was, sitting there  _ watching _ him, striped tail swishing back and forth. 

“How did you get in my lab?” he asked rhetorically. 

“ShadowCat followed you in Boss,” Friday said. “She explored before staring at you until you turned around.” 

Yes, it’s name was ShadowCat, and no, it had not been Tony’s idea, it had been Peter’s. Where the kid came up with it he had no clue. Tony narrowed his eyes at ShadowCat, who sauntered up to him and jumped on the table where he was working on Peter’s Spider-suit. The glare intensified. ShadowCat’s tail flicked him in the face and she hopped up on a small shelf where she could watch over the table. Tony muttered about ‘annoying cats’ before ignoring her and continuing planning updates for the safety features. It was Friday so Peter would be coming to stay the weekend after school and they could work on it then.It had been decided that ShadowCat would stay at the tower rather than Peter’s apartment because the building had a ‘no pets’ rule, as Aunt May had informed him when  _ she _ saw the videos about the cat. So, ShadowCat had her own set-up here, a corner of the lounge with a fluffy cat bed, a cat tree, and food and water bowls. Turns out she knows how to use and flush a toilet, so no litter box was needed. After discovering that in a short midnight jaunt that turned into a ghost hunt, Tony and Peter had started keeping a list of ShadowCat’s quirks on the fridge. 

  1. ShadowCat does not like being pet, but does like being occasionally snuggled. 
  2. ShadowCat only uses the toilet at night, and only the one off the lounge. Don’t use that bathroom at night.
  3. ShadowCat is freakishly smart and will prank you if you prank her. It has happened before and will not happen again. 
  4. If a trip to the vet is so much a mention, Shadowcat will disappear until you swear not to go. No amount of bribes will work. 
  5. ShadowCat can and will talk back to you. 



  
  


There were only the four so far, but it had only been two weeks. The ‘talking’ thing was by far the weirdest. She couldn’t actually use words like they could but she always got her point across, it just took a bit to figure out. She would somehow use her posture and meows to convey ‘no  _ really _ ’ or ‘yes, I thought I made it obvious that was what I wanted’, and Peter swore she had once helped him with his homework. Tony wasn’t sure whether or not to believe the kid, because first of all, ShadowCat is a  _ cat, _ and second off all, he honestly wouldn’t put it past her. He pulled up a holographic screen to start coding. He was halfway done when a tail-tip flicked through the hologram where he had just been. Tony ignored it and continued. It happened again, same spot. He frowned and leaned around the screen to look at the cat. She looked him straight in the eye and tapped the holograph with her tail three times. 

_ Look. _

Tony wrinkled his nose at her but looked back at it. It took him a second, but then he saw it. A mistake. It had been correct in his head, but he’d typed it wrong. It would have taken a bit of trial and error before he noticed it. Tony looked at ShadowCat again. She gave him a smug look, tail swishing back and forth. 

_ You’re welcome. _

“Hey Mr. Stark!” Peter called as he entered the lab. 

“Your cat knows how to code.” was the first thing Tony said. 

“Really?” Peter said as he set his backpack on the floor and sat down by Tony. “I mean, she helped me with my Calculus, but that was just an adding mistake. What’d she do for you?”

“She pointed out a spot where I hit a wrong key when coding, which means she has at least some knowledge of it.” Tony looked at ShadowCat again. “I’m thinking she might be a bit more than she seems.” 

ShadowCat’s ear twitched. She looked at them, and for once she had an unreadable expression. 

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

_ The next day _

She wandered the hallways of the Tower, heading for the common room. Peter would be coming from school soon and Tony was down in the lab. She liked the quiet in-between moments. In them she could pretend she was normal. She settled on a couch and closed her eyes.

_ “She might be a bit more than she seems.” _

Green eyes snapped open. She’d been too obvious; they’d noticed. But… they didn’t seem like the others. Approaching Peter as Spider-Man had been an impulse, she had expected him to leave her in another alley somewhere. But he hadn’t. They were both different, Tony by  _ choice. _ They were different and they  _ helped _ instead of hiding. They’d given her a  _ name, _ something the others had not cared to do. Sure, she already had one, but they hadn’t know that. But for all the good they did, she’d seen the news and slander when she lived out on the streets, heard the others talk about it. They helped and were  _ mocked _ for it. For doing something the others were too afraid to do. Something  _ she _ was too afraid to do.

She settled back down, driving the many voices to the back of her mind. Shadowcat. It fit well, for all she did was hide in the shadows.


	2. Wrong and Right

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A villain and dramatic reveal!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Both chapters are kind of short, but I posted them right after each other so... yay?

Something was wrong. 

_ Something _

_ Was _

_ Wrong _

Shadowcat bristled, scanning the common room.  _ Where. _ The couches remained in the same place they always did, the cat tree she lay on giving her a good vantage point. There were no scuff marks on the cream-colored walls, nor the gray floor.

She should have heard something.

But she didn’t.

And now something was wrong. 

She jumped off the cat tree, increasing her size, for once unmindful of the cameras she knew were there. Friday’s voice reached her ears, crackling and distorted.

“Down-two… floors-second-door-on-the  **right** -” before cutting out. 

Shadowcat loped over to the elevator, pressing the silver down button with her nose. She could reach it easily now. The shiny doors opened and Shadowcat entered and tapped the button for the floor two below her. The elevator began to move. She considered for a moment before shrinking back down to normal house cat size. Surprise would be her friend today. 

After a tense minute the elevator stopped and the doors slid open, revealing an open room with three hallways leading away from it, the same layout as the floor above. The only difference was that this floor wasn’t really used and was bare of any comfort of accessory, barring a few scuffs and scorch marks from an occasional experiment. The left corner of the center hallway was dyed lime green in an explosion pattern. Shadowcat remembered hearing the noise before Tony and Peter entered the common room a few minutes later covered in green spatters.

Friday had said the second door on the right, but which hallway? Shadowcat padded forward, ears twitching as she listened for clues. Faint thuds and yelling came from the right hallway, too faint for a human to hear. She turned and trotted down it, glancing at the second door as she passed. The noises were from farther away, growing steadily closer as she peered around a corner. A ways down the hall, what she assumed was a guard stood in front of the second door down on the right.

_ Friday must’ve cut out before she could tell me it was past the corner, _ she thought, glancing back down the hall to the elevator. She looked back at the guard.

_ Let’s see what these people are like. _

Shadowcat trotted around the corner, staying by the wall. The previous yelling had turned to low, malicious voices in a heated argument. She reached the guard. He still hadn’t noticed her. She scoffed internally.

_ Some security. _ She meowed, trying to make herself look as cute and innocent as a cat could possibly be. The guard looked down. Then he kicked her. His foot caught under her ribs, lifting her up and throwing her into a wall. It wasn’t hard enough to do more than bruise, but it annoyed Shadowcat to no end. 

“Damn vermin get everywhere.” he muttered. “Even in a 93-story tower.” 

_ I thought I was  _ done _ with  _ **_others_ ** _ like this. It seems I was wrong. _ She stared at the man, sleek and unruffled despite her annoyance.  _ Maybe it’s time they learned what it’s like to be on the other side of things. _ She crouched and leaped, growing into a full-sized leopard. The man let out a strangled scream that was cut off as Shadowcat knocked his head back against the door. He slumped to the ground. Shadowcat shrank again, pressing herself up against the wall by the doorframe.

“Bob!” a sharp voice called from inside the room. “What’s going on out there?”

Bob, predictably, said nothing.

“Bob?” A lock clicked and the door was opened by what appeared to be another goon. Shadowcat slipped in around his feet, sticking to the shadows. What she saw enraged her. Tony and Peter were tied to chairs across from her, each with a goon at their back holding a gun. There were another two armed goons flanking them. Ezekiel Stein, son of Obadiah Stein, stood in front of them, hands folded behind his back and a slightly crazed, victorious smirk on his face. It turned into a frown when goon #1 (Shadowcat decided to call him Joe) informed him of Bob’s unconsciousness. 

“Then go find whoever did it!” he snapped, waving Joe away. Joe nodded and hurried out the door, closing it behind him. No one locked it. Stein#2 turned back to Tony and Peter. “Now, as I was saying, you will give me all of Friday’s access codes.”

“How about  _ no. _ ” Tony said flatly. “Now run along before security gets here.” Then he tilted his head. “On second thought, no, stay, I’m sure they’d  _ love _ to see you.” 

Peter snickered. 

“Shut up,” the less-effective-Stein snarled.

“I thought you wanted the codes?”

Stein 2.0 drew back to hit Tony. Shadowcat was having none of it. She had crept up behind him, rising on two legs as she did so, making sure her form was hidden by his until the last moment. Her left hand pulled up her hood before landing on his shoulders and Jae pressed claw-tipped fingers against his throat, digging them into skin just enough to make him bleed. Slightly-crazy-Stein froze, knowing full well she could rip his throat out in a second. (She really,  _ really _ , didn’t want to)

“Turn on the safety and put the guns down,” she growled at the goons. Peter and Tony’s eyes were blown wide in shock. The goons shifted uncertainly. Jae tensed her grip.

“Do it!” Tiny Stein squeaked. The goons did as they were told. Jae knew she looked frightening. She hadn’t shifted to a fully human form because, as useful as opposable thumbs were, most of their senses sucked. So, she still had the tail, ears, claws, fangs, and eyes of a cat. Her nose looked human (that had seemed to be what freaked humans out previously) but was still better than a humans.

“Kick them over here.”

They hesitated again, but complied.

“Untie the prisoners.” 

As soon as he was free, Tony shooed away the goons and untied Peter himself, glaring at them the entire time. Jae glared at them as well, and they edged away from her, lining up on the wall. Peter dragged Bob in and set him by his friends while Tony called in security, who had previously been unaware of the altercation going on in the upper floors, though of no fault of their own. Stein-the-less-impressive-second had used some of his fathers research to block Friday and cameras from seeing or hearing anything unusual. 

Her ears twitched, focusing on the footsteps of the security guards coming down the hall. When they paused to open the door Jae stepped back and shifted into a cat. Poor-unfortunate-Stein staggered away, whipping around to see only the shadows of the room and a flash of eyes before the guards entered and quickly apprehended him and his goons. They were a bit suspicious about what had happened, especially after seeing the pinprick claw marks on small Steins neck, but Tony brushed off any questions while Peter stared at the shadows, trying to pinpoint where Shadowcat was. Eventually the security guard gave up and they took the villains down to the detainment level. 

As soon as they were gone Tony turned to face the shadows and sat down cross legged on the floor with a grunt. Peter sat beside him, though it was clear he wanted to head straight for Shadowcat. He was tapping his fingers on his knees to a pattern that sounded suspiciously like a song from  _ Hamilton. _

“You want to come on out?” Tony asked gently. “The guards won’t let Stein and his cronies escape.” 

“Yeah, and I have a lot of questions!” Peter exclaimed, leaning forward. “What’s your real name? Are you a mutant? Why didn’t you tell us you were also a person? What-”

Tony put a hand on his shoulder. “Calm down Pete. I think you’re making her nervous.”

“Sorry.” Peter rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. 

Shadowcat was uncertain. No one had known both sides of her before, it was always just human or cat, and it had become cat more and more as she aged. Most humans didn’t like cats, but they seemed to dislike teenagers even more. Peter and Tony had like cat-her and appeared to be interested in human-her but what if it was a trick? She paced in the shadows. Peter squinted for a moment before he began tracking her movement. Shadowcat stopped. Peter stared. Shadowcat stepped right. Peter looked right. Shadowcat stepped left. Peter looked left.

When he didn’t lunge forward to catch her, Shadowcat slowly stepped forward.

Peter and Tony both smiled.

Shadowcat sat down right outside the darkness, her tail still in it. 

“Do you want to go back to our floor?” Tony asked. “You don’t have to…  _ change _ if it makes you uncomfortable.” 

Shadowcat hesitantly nodded.

“Is that a yes?”

She nodded again. They stood up and headed for the door, Tony holding it open for her. They went up ‘stairs’. 

-.-.-.-.-.-.- 

The next few days passed uneventfully, and nothing changed except for Peter and Tony treating her a little more human. They didn’t seem to dislike or hate her, and Shadowcat kind of wanted to talk to them, show them her human form, but she was afraid that it would all be an act and they’d be just like the others. Would it be worth it if they weren’t?

When Peter came home from school the next day there was a black haired girl in a black sweater sitting on the couch and glancing back at him shyly. 


	3. Epilogue

When Peter stepped out of the Tower elevator on friday, Jae lifted her head from where she was curled up on the top of the cat tree, bounding down to greet him and shifting as she hit the floor. Peter grinned. It had been a few weeks since they had officially met Jae and laid down ground rules. For secret identity purposes (because Jae was  _ not _ letting the boys go out hero-ing on their own, they’d end up dead) Jae was staying in for the moment because she didn’t like shifting fully human and they were working out how far they could push it before it became noticeable. 

“So, how was school?” Jae asked as they walked into the kitchen. 

“It was okay. Ned got a lego Death Star and invited me over to help build it.”

She poked him teasingly. “Invite him and MJ over here some day, I want to meet them!”

“As a cat I bet,” Peter replied, poking her back. 

“Of course! Then they talk to you ‘cause they think you can’t understand and viola! Dark secrets!” She shoulder-shoved him in return for the poke.

Peter winced at the reminder as they devolved into a shoving match around the kitchen. He had told Shadowcat a lot of things, some of them lighter and more funny, and some about things like his nightmares. They’d talked about it and Jae hadn’t said anything to Tony yet, but she told him he should. She was probably right but…

Tony came in and pulled them apart, setting them down on the stools. “Alright, settle down you two, this is getting out of hand. You’ll destroy the whole kitchen and then Pepper’ll destroy me!” 

“And me,” Peter said. He looked at Jae. “How is it that she never blames you?” 

Jae gave him a smug smirk as Tony sat down across from them with a cup of coffee. “Because I’m not a trouble making boy.” She and Pepper had been getting along well (though Pepper had been very surprised to come home to having a cat that was actually a new unofficial daughter. She was working on getting papers for Jae so they could foster (adopt) her) and Jae had learned a lot from her, like how to get Tony to go to his meetings (some of them anyway) and to get Peter to focus on his homework. She also didn’t blow up the lab. Or her room. Or throw slimeballs. Or make web explosions. That probably had something to do with it. 

“Anyway~” Jae drawled “wasn’t there something you were going to do today?” 

“What?” Peter couldn’t remember anything specific. 

“Surprise!” A new voice yelled, and Shuri tackle-hugged Peter. He yelped as they both fell to the floor and Tony hid a smile behind his cup while Shuri and Jae laughed. Shuri booped him on the nose before helping him up. “Why didn’t you tell me you had a sister? She’s awesome!”

“I didn’t tell you because she’s new.”

“You make it sound like I’m a toy.”

“That’s not what I meant!”

“I know.”

“You fell for that really fast SpiderKid.”

“Why are you teaming up on me?!” 


End file.
